


Riding To New York

by losingmymindtonight



Series: Songfic!Verse [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Adult Peter Parker, Cancer, Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grandparent Tony Stark, Grief/Mourning, Mentions of Cancer, Old Tony Stark, Parent Peter Parker, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, Terminal Illnesses, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-27 06:49:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20041693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/losingmymindtonight/pseuds/losingmymindtonight
Summary: If given enough time, the human body grows old. It wears, it slows, it comes to an end.It's just a truth of life. Everybody dies.And one day, so will Tony Stark.





	Riding To New York

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually a very complicated story, at least in terms of how it came into existence.  
I’ve gone back and forth on whether or not to explain the backstory of why I wrote it. The reason will probably sound ridiculous to a lot of you, but eh. Other people’s lives usually look ridiculous from the outside.  
Before you continue, I want to throw in a quick pre-warning. Both this AN and the following fic will contain heavy discussions of cancer, grief, and death (although, just for reference, there is no actual major character death in this story, only discussions of it happening in the future). If you’d like a more detailed review of the specific ways in which these themes are presented and discussed in the fic, please see the end of this AN. I’m going to try to be as clear as I can. I know that this topic can be a major trigger for a lot of people, so please take care of yourselves.  
That being said, I don’t actually see this fic as being a complete downer. I was writing this as a way to make myself feel better, so there’s a lot of hope throughout. If I did my job right, the ending isn’t even sad, necessarily. It’s just… life.   
I started writing this fic last year, back in October, when the pony I’ve had since I was 5 was diagnosed with cancer. Despite how stupid this probably sounds, it was genuinely one of the hardest periods of my life. I’ve had him for so long that I can’t remember what it’s like to live without him. I had just moved away from home for my first year of college, and it sort of felt like my childhood was being wrenched away from me.  
I used to listen to this song a lot, when I felt like I just… needed to cry, and this fic was born out of that. In many ways, it’s another case of me working through my emotions via Tony and Peter. I tried, originally, to write it from Peter’s POV, but that was a little too close to home, since I see myself, in a way, as Peter in this story. Viewing the concept of life and death from Tony’s POV, from the POV of the dying, was strangely therapeutic. It helped me gain perspective on some things.  
It’s taken me a long, long time to finish this, but I’m proud of what I’ve created. For some weird reason, I find a lot of comfort in taking sad moments in my life and using them to fuel writing. It’s nice to go through something difficult and create a piece of work on the other side. It makes some sense out of the breaking.  
In case anybody cares, Pony went through surgery to remove the cancer in November of last year, around Thanksgiving, and seems to be in remission. I’m very, very grateful to the vets who worked so hard to give him a chance. The tests to see if the cancer spread to his lymph nodes were, unfortunately, inconclusive, so we don’t know how likely it is that the cancer has or will spread. I’m very aware that the most likely outcome is that it will return, at some point, and that I’ll probably lose him to this. I’m hoping that it will become easier to face that with time.  
After writing this fic, I do feel a little bit better, so that has to be something.  
As always, thank you for reading the weird stories I come up with. You’ve given me this outlet, and you’ve given me the chance to share my emotions. That means a lot to me.
> 
> WARNINGS: discussions of terminal cancer, cancer diagnosis, discussions of chemo and surgery, discussions of death, depictions of grief and mourning, general ruminations of mortality and the meaning of life

"…See the doctors told me that my body won't hold me,  
and my lungs are turning black.  
Been a lucky strike's fool since I was at school  
and there ain't no turning back.  
They can't tell me how long I've got,  
maybe months but maybe not.  
I'm taking this bike and I'm riding to New York.

'Cause I wanna see my granddaughter one last time,  
wanna hold her close and feel her tiny heartbeat next to mine.  
Wanna see my son and the man he's become,  
tell him I'm sorry for the things I've done,  
and I'd do it if I had to walk.  
I'm taking this bike and I'm riding to New York…”

Passenger // Riding to New York

\--

“-it’s just that the scans show that it’s already spread to the lymph nodes. There are treatment options, of course. We could look into what the prognosis would be should we go through with an ablation or embolization paired with chemotherapy, but…”

Tony shook his head slowly, focusing on the feeling of Pepper’s hand clasped between his. He felt strangely calm in the face of the death sentence. An accepting serenity that he couldn’t understand. “But it won’t cure me.”

“At this stage?” The oncologist, Doctor Kurtz, looked down at him with sympathy in her eyes. “No, Mister Stark, it won’t. But it _will _lengthen the time you’ll be able to spend with your family.”

He closed his eyes, licked his chapped lips. “Yeah. Great. Well, fuck that.”

Doctor Kurtz seemed taken aback by the harshness of his words. Or maybe it was the detachment with which he said them. Even _he_ was a little unnerved by the apathy in his voice.

“Mister Stark, please-”

“I’m so sorry, I think Tony’s rather shocked.” Despite everything, Pepper’s voice was calm and level and every bit the CEO he’d never quite learned to be. “As you can imagine, we’re… well, we’re going to need some time to process all of this. Together.”

“Of course.” Kurtz seemed to zero in on Pepper’s composure. “You’re welcome to spend all the time you need making a decision. I’ll email you all of the treatment options, and you can do some research.”

“We appreciate that. Thank you.”

“It’s my pleasure. I’m… I’m truly sorry I couldn’t give you better news.”

“It’s alright.” Pepper gave his hand a squeeze. Always there, through thick and thin. “At least we _have_ news.”

Kurtz nodded. “It’s certainly better to know.” She shifted awkwardly. “Well, I’ll, uh, I’ll be on my way. Let you two have some time.”

Pepper reached out and shook Doctor Kurtz’s hand. Tony didn’t. He just kept staring at his lap, mind more sluggish than he could ever remember it being. He knew, logically, that it wasn’t the cancer. It was in his liver, after all, not his brain, but the feeling of imminent loss rose up anyway.

“Thank you again.”

Kurtz smiled back. “Of course. Just reach out once you’ve made a decision.”

“We will.”

The MedBay door let out its familiar _swish_ as it closed behind Kurtz’s back. It was detail he usually missed, something he let slip past him because it was minute and therefore inconsequential.

Suddenly, he wished he’d spent more of his life absorbing the little things.

“Tony,” Pepper’s voice was soft, “you need to call Peter.”

Trust Pepper the hit on the exact topic he’d been so desperately trying to ignore. Trust Pepper to know that he couldn’t make any decisions before he’d crossed that bridge. Trust Pepper to understand his mind better than he understood it himself.

He swallowed. “Do I have to tell him?”

“Tony.” Soft chastisement. For some reason, he felt relieved. At least she didn’t feel like he needed to be treated like glass. He wouldn’t have been able to stand that. “_Of course_ you do.”

“He doesn’t have to know.” He knew the suggestion was ridiculous even as he articulated it. “People do that, right? They don’t tell their kids they’re dying until it’s almost over.”

“But he’s _not_ a child, Tony.” Pepper sat beside him on the bed, tilting his chin up to meet her teary gaze. “In case you haven’t noticed, he hasn’t been one for quite some time.”

For the first time since the diagnosis, he felt like crying. He didn’t know if that was a good sign or not. “It doesn’t matter how old he is. He’s never stopped being a child.”

“He’s never stopped being _your_ child.”

His first instinct was to protest the blatant statement. Then, he faltered.

_Fuck it. I’m dying._

“Yeah.” He rolled the words around on his tongue. “My child.”

It felt good to say, because it was true. Peter _was_ his child. He and Pepper may have never gotten around to creating some of their own, but Tony had been internally tagging himself as a parent for years. In every way that mattered, he was Peter’s father.

He found himself instantly regretting running from the truth for so long. It wasn’t just _that_ truth, either. He’d danced away from so many realities that it would be impossible to list them out. How many opportunities had he thrown away through his own blindness?

He was riddled with so many regrets. So, so many.

Everything he wished he’d done. Did he have time to do it now?

Pepper’s words were firm, but not unkind. They jolted him back to the present. “You need to call him.”

“No.”

“Tony-”

“What I need to do is order the jet.”

She sighed, giving him a weary nod. “You’re going to New York.”

He nodded. “This isn’t the kind of thing I can spring on him over a phone call, Pep. And I… I need to see him. I need to see all of them.”

_I need to hold him. I’m dying, and I just want to hold my kid._

“I understand.”

He brought a hand up to her face, stroking a thumb just underneath her eye. God, she was so beautiful. Did he tell her that enough? He didn’t think he did. “I know you love it out here. I know Malibu has always been the place you belong, but…”

A knowing smile. She didn’t look even in the least bit upset by his unspoken request. “But you want to move back to the city.”

He felt the need to explain, to apologize. She was already going to spend the foreseeable future as a caregiver to her dying husband, and now he was going to haul her back across the country.

She deserved to know why.

“It’s where Peter is. And Rhodey, and Hap. It’s where I grew up.”

_It’s where I want to die._

“I’d never go against you on that.” She leaned in, brushed their lips together. The barest touch sent static electricity down his spine. “I’ll get started on the logistics today. You go to your kid.”

“I’m sorry.” He didn’t know exactly what he was apologizing for. Everything, maybe. All of it. “I… I should be here. With you. You’re struggling, too. I shouldn’t just up and leave you, that’s not right-”

“Tony, just… just be quiet for a second, alright?” Her hand carded through his hair, and he tilted his head into the touch. “We’re going to have a heart-to-heart now. It’s going to be very uncomfortable for you, but you can suck it up.”

He smothered a smile. “You got it.”

“There’s no ignoring this. There’s no… putting it in a box and willing it away. This is _big_.” Her voice cracked. “This is… life-altering.”

“It’s life-_ending_.”

“Yes.” She took his bluntness in stride. “Yes, it is. We won’t dance around that. This is going to kill you. And at the end of the day, _you_ get to choose how all of that goes. Not me, not the doctors, not Peter, not _anyone_. Just you. You’re at the wheel. You know I’ll love you no matter what you do, no matter what you need.” Another kiss, this time on his forehead. “And if what you need right now is to see Peter and hug your grandchildren, then that is exactly what you’re going to do, everything else be damned. Do you understand me?”

His eyes flickered shut, chest warm and tight. It was strange, to feel this much gratitude, this much _love_, in the aftermath of the worst news he’d ever received, but it was there all the same, and he didn’t have the wherewithal to resist it.

“I don’t deserve you.”

“No, you don’t.” She stood, hand lingering on his face as she stepped away. “Now call for the jet. You have a kid to talk to.”

And then he was lost, wading through a sea of unknown twists and turns. It was desolate, unsure. They didn’t write books on how to tell your child that you were dying. Or, if they did, they didn’t write _helpful_ ones. “How am I supposed to tell him?”

“Just follow your instincts. You’ll know.”

He hoped she was right, because at that moment, he couldn’t even imagine looking him in the eyes without falling apart.

\--

He knocked on the Parkers’ door just six hours later, leather duffle in one hand and an FAO Schwarz bag in the other.

Much to his surprise, the door swung open and he found himself staring into the face of 9-year-old Ben.

“Grandpa!”

Tony’s face split into a wide grin, all the shit of the last 12 hours swirling away at the joy on the boy’s face, and then he found himself dropping his duffle in favor of pulling him into his arms. “Hey there, bud. How’re you?”

“I’m awesome now that you’re here!” Ben pulled back, bouncing excitedly on the balls of his feet. He glanced back over his shoulder. “Dad! Dad! Come quick! You’ll never guess who’s here!”

There was a rush of footsteps, and then Peter came skidding around the corner, frazzled in the way only a father worried for his child could be.

Tony could relate. It was nice to see him suffering in the way he had.

_It’s called karma, kid._

“Ben! I told you not the open the front…” Peter froze, trailing off mid-sentence. “Tony?”

Ben rushed back to the kid, dragging him to the door by his wrist. “Did you know, Dad? Did you?”

“Uh, no.” Despite his obvious surprise, Peter recovered quickly and reached out a hand for Tony to shake. “Hey, Tony. Is everything alright?”

_No._

“Of course.” He grabbed the kid’s outstretched hand and hauled him into a hug, setting his palm flat against the nape of his neck and holding him close. “Hey, Pete.” His voice was barely a whisper. “It’s good to see you.”

“Yeah, same.” He could feel every single one of Peter’s steady breaths on his skin. “Is something wrong?”

“Don’t worry about that right now, it’s nothing pressing.” _At least, nothing throwing on the Spider-Man suit will fix_. “Just wanted to check in. Sorry I didn’t call.”

Peter pulled back, eyes gentle. “It’s not an issue. You know you’re always welcome here. Oh, and it’s just us, by the way. MJ’s got a story in Boston.”

He forced himself not to wince. He was sure that she’d be home by tomorrow evening, catching the first flight once Tony spilled the news, and despite the guilt, he was glad. Peter would need her. He would need everyone.

“You’re a proper house-husband,” he quipped.

The kid smirked. “Luckily, my boss is pretty good about letting me work from home.”

“Is she? I should give her a raise.”

“I think Pepper can give _herself_ a raise, actually.”

Suddenly, Ben was tugging at his sleeve. “Did you bring us presents?”

Peter rolled his eyes. “_Benjamin_, is that how we treat our guests?”

He waved the kid’s objections away as he grabbed his duffle and moved into the entryway. “Of course I did. What kind of grandfather would I be if I didn’t bring you guys presents?” He looked around. “Now where’s little Lizzie?”

Peter snorted, pulling the leather bag out of Tony’s hands and tossing it over his shoulder like it weighed nothing. Then again, it probably didn’t to him. “Lizzie! Come here a sec!”

There were more sounds of bare feet on hardwood, lighter than Ben’s had been, faster and closer together. A second later, a bright-eyed little girl came barreling around the corner.

He hadn’t known Peter this young, but he used to imagine what it would’ve been like to raise him from the start. Maybe that was wrong, unfair. After all, May and Ben had done a killer job, far better than he could’ve hoped to. But… sometimes his selfishness would creep in, and he’d fantasize about how it would feel to have the kid all to himself. To have heard _his_ bare feet in the corridor, to have stared down into _his_ sparkling eyes when he came home from work, to have had the chance to fill _his_ room with expensive toys.

“Hey, little Lizzie.” He grinned down at the girl, wiping the thoughts away. He was _dying_. He didn’t have time for ruminations. He had this moment, and that would have to be enough. “Miss me?”

“It’s Grandpa!” Lizzie pushed past her older brother so she could barrel into him. “Grandpa! Grandpa! Grandpa!”

“Lizzie! Lizzie! Lizzie!” He parroted.

“Haha. You’re both incredibly funny.” Peter gestured to the living room. “Do you guys wanna open Grandpa’s presents in the living room?”

Ben nodded excitedly and grabbed Tony’s free hand to drag him through the doorway and towards the couch. Lizzie, who had her fists latched firmly into his pant leg, stumbled along beside him.

“What’d you get us, Grandpa?”

Lizzie tried to crane her neck to peek into the FAO Schwarz bag, and he raised it away from her with a grin. Something dark in his chest had released at the sight of the kids. He felt a little less regretful. There was something deeply sad about remembering everything he’d have to leave behind, but also something immensely comforting about the fact that he _did_ have things to miss, people to miss _him_.

“Well, you’ll just have to see, won’t you?” He settled down on the couch, taking his time as a way to tease, and the kids both settled eagerly on the coffee table in front of him. Peter sat on a recliner a few feet away, amusement lining every inch of his face. God, he still looked so _young_.

He dug through the bag for a few seconds. “Let’s see… how about oldest first?” Ben’s eyes lit up as he slid out the first package. “Sorry I didn’t wrap it, squirt. It was kind of a last-minute stop.”

“Whoa!” Ben pulled the gift out of his hands, staring down at it with barely-contained excitement. For a flash, he looked so much like Peter that his heart faltered. “This is awesome!”

“What’d you get, Ben?” Peter asked.

“A new art kit! Look!” He held it up, grin never once faltering.

Peter smiled back, eyes flickering over to Tony. “Thank you.”

It always felt ridiculous when the kid thanked him. He could buy his children a million toys, do him a million favors, and yet Tony would always be the one still in debt.

“Of course.” He shot Peter a lopsided smile before turning back to the two kids just inches from his knees. “Now, I hear that _you_,” he tapped Lizzy’s nose, grinning when she giggled, “are quite the little roboticist.”

Peter groaned. “She took the car’s radio apart when I wasn’t looking the other day, so we’ve got the creative deconstruction bit down. We’re still working on actually _building_ something.” He smiled, a little shy. “Maybe we can come out to Malibu and set her loose in your lab over the summer. Then anything she destroys is _your_ problem.”

_If I live that long. Oh, god, will I be alive by summer? Will get to go to Ben’s stupid third grade graduation? How many more of Peter’s birthdays will I get to see?_

He cleared his throat to hide the anguish piercing his chest. “No, no. These are _your_ monsters. They’re permanently _your_ problem. That’s how parenthood works.”

“But that means that Dad’s your problem,” Ben said, pouring the contents of his gift all over the floor.

Peter’s face broke into a grin. “He’s right. They’re my problem, and my problems are your problems, so they’re still your problem.”

“That logic is so twisted that I wont even offer it a response,” Tony shot back, pulling Lizzie’s gift free of the bag and carefully handing it to her, helping steady it when it nearly toppled to the floor. “There you go, Lizzie.”

“A robot!” She exclaimed, turning to show it off to Peter proudly. “Look, Dad!”

Tony didn’t know why hearing the kids call Peter _Dad_ made his lungs so tight, but it did. He still remembered the rib-crushing emotion that had left him speechless when he’d first held Ben, when he’d stared up from the precious bundle in his arms and really understood that Peter was a father now. That his baby had a baby of his own.

The turning of time was a beautiful and frightening thing. There was something a little romantic, he supposed, about growing old with people beside you, but also something so subtly tragic. Nobody lived forever. At the end of the day, you were either part of the leaving or the left.

It was the rule of nature that, eventually, he would be the former and that Peter would be one of the latter. That was a fact that had ghosted behind them both for years, but it had just seemed so far away. He never felt old, never felt like he was nearing some unspoken expiration date. Even now, with the scans and the bloodwork and the diagnosis, all permanent reminders of the impermanence of his existence, he didn’t feel like the walking dead.

And yet the world around him looked different. A little smaller, maybe, a little more paper-thin, but more connected, too. A few feet away, Peter was still smiling indulgently at Lizzie: the same expression that Tony felt inside himself whenever his own child met his gaze.

That was how this worked. He poured himself into Peter, and Peter poured himself into his children, and on and on it would go. Generations would be built on this love.

“Wow,” Peter said. “Do you get to put it together yourself?”

“Uh huh!” Lizzie whipped her head back to him, expression hopeful. “Will you help me, Grandpa?”

There was something beautiful and wild in her eyes. It was youth, innocence, the manifestation of the future. This child would see decades of advancement while Tony would become an echo, a memory, a few lines of smeared ink on a census form.

_There’s nothing else I would rather do than spend time with you, _he thought.

“Of course.”

“Tomorrow, though.” Peter pushed to his feet, watching Tony with barely concealed suspicion. “Now, though, it’s bedtime.”

The kids let out a few half-hearted shouts of protest, but Peter just herded them towards the staircase with scattered promises of pancakes for breakfast and _Grandpa will still be here tomorrow, don’t worry._

Peter paused at the bottom of the stairs, glancing back to the living room with a disconcerted look in his eyes. “Ben, can you help your sister brush her teeth? I’ll be up in a bit.”

A shout of “Duh!” came from the top of the stairs. Tony grinned.

He _loved_ children. Loved _these_ children more than he could even begin to comprehend.

Peter wandered back into the living room, eyeing Tony curiously. Still, he didn’t pry, didn’t dig for answers like he _knew_ the kid was longing to. He just stooped over and started carefully gathering up Ben’s gift.

“I didn’t know you could clean,” Tony teased, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table. “Really, I’m shocked and astounded.”

“Oh, shut up. I clean up after them all the time.” The kid set the boxes down beside his feet, halfheartedly glaring. “Now, I’m gonna go check that the troublemakers are actually in bed,” he backed towards the stairs, “and then _you_ are gonna spill about whatever is wrong.”

He shrugged to cover the dread he felt at the order. That _was_ what he’d come here for, right? To tell Peter?

The right thing was never the easy thing, no matter how often you wished for symmetry.

The kid somehow took both a million years and a single heartbeat upstairs. When he came back into the living room, he was smiling, shooting a thumbs up as he sank into the couch at Tony’s side.

“They’re both in bed and asleep. Thanks for wearing them out with all the excitement.”

He smiled back despite himself. “Of course.”

“Anyway,” Peter’s face dropped into something more serious, forehead furrowing in the way it did when he was staring down a difficult problem, “there’s something wrong, right? Or, at least, you’re here to tell me something important.”

Even with Peter’s mood switch, his smile didn’t fall. Why should it? He may have limited time left, but he was _exactly_ where he always wanted to be. With Peter, looking after Peter. It was impossible to be sad when he was with his child.

“You’re a really good kid, Pete,” he murmured. “I don’t think I did a very good job of telling you that in the beginning, but you are. You are _such_ a good kid.”

The words seemed to scare the kid, although he certainly hadn’t meant for them to. He just… felt like there were a lot of things that needed saying, and he didn’t feel so shy about voicing them now.

What did he have to lose?

“Tony,” Peter’s eyes danced over his face, “what’s going on?”

He smiled through the pain, through the gut-deep understanding of what was about to happen, what he was about to shatter. “Still can’t believe you don’t wanna see your old man.”

“You _know_ I’m always happy when you visit.” The kid’s voice was small, the kind of trusting that he never seemed to fade no matter how old they both got. “But this is different. I can tell.”

He reached up and cupped Peter’s face. The kid’s eyes were shinning with confusion, but he didn’t pull away as Tony slid his other hand through his hair, gently palmed the back of his neck.

He was so warm, so soft and solid under his hands. So _alive_.

“I’m dying,” he whispered.

Just two words, spoken with a kind of gentleness that completely belied the horrific meaning. For a moment, all Peter did was stare, dumbfounded, as if he couldn’t process the concept of _dying_ and _Tony_ in the same utterance, as if they required entirely separate contexts to have any sort of meaning.

“What?”

His smiled again, thumb brushing over Peter’s cheek. For some reason, he’d never felt more tender in his life. There was something almost… reverent about this sorrow. Something holy in the admission. “Stage IV liver cancer. They told me and Pep this morning.”

Peter heaved in a handful of shaky breaths. Tony let him process, didn’t break their gaze even when the pain blossoming in the kid’s eyes tore at his composure. He wished he could draw the grief out of him, wished he could harbor it inside himself instead.

“Okay,” Peter whispered. Small, young, frightened. “I… can’t you… there are… there are treatments, right? Things… we can do something. Treat it. Fix it. We… We can…”

“Oh, buddy.” The old nickname slipped right off his tongue. “It’s already metastasized. There’s not much they can do besides buy me some time.”

Something broke in the kid’s face. Suddenly, he didn’t look like a father with children. He looked like a child who needed his father. His years slipped away, and he was just… _young_. Vulnerable. The change happened so quickly that it had Tony wondering whether or not anybody really grew up at all, or if they just perfected the dance of safeguarding their childhood somewhere deep within them.

“_Please_,” Peter whispered, fidgeting like he wasn’t sure what to do with himself. “I… I need time.”

Up until that moment, Tony hadn’t had a single intention of accepting treatment. He’d seen chemo, seen the surgeries, and he had no desire to go through any of it himself. He’d go quick, he’d go on his own time. What was the point of dragging it out, anyway? What could a few extra months buy him, really?

But now, looking into Peter’s eyes, he realized that those months could buy him _everything_.

If Peter needed time, he’d cling to every single second with a vice grip.

“Pepper’s researching treatments.” He slid his thumb along the kid’s jawline, memorizing everything he could about his face. He’d taken it for granted, before. Just let the specifics slip past him. “I’ll get you all the time I can.”

“_Tony_,” Peter’s hands curled in the soft fabric of his shirt. His face crumpled, body shaking as he held back sobs. “Tony, I…”

“Come here.” He pulled the kid forward, and they fell into the hug like clockwork. Peter’s forehead dropped against his collarbone, Tony’s arms slid up to cradle around his back. “Shh, shh.” The kid was warm in his arms, and even though every one of his breaths were shaky with sobs, Tony savored the sensation of _holding_. Of comforting. Of protecting. Of still being strong enough and healthy enough to do those things. “You’re gonna be okay.”

“I won’t be. I _won’t_.” He was transported instantly back to Peter’s hormone-fueled breakdowns as a teenager, back when he would dumbly cling to his misery like it was a badge of honor. “I can’t live without you. I just _can’t_.”

“Yes, you can. You _can_. You’re brilliant, Peter. You’ve always been brilliant. You have a family behind you. You’ll… You’ll be _amazing_, and you have so many people on your side.”

_I wish I could see it. I wish I never had to leave you._

“I don’t want people. I want _you_.”

Peter was bigger than he used to be, and Tony felt inexplicably smaller. He couldn’t curl himself around the kid like he once could, wasn’t able to tuck him so securely in his arms that the world couldn’t touch him. He wished he could. He wished he was strong enough to piece him back together again. It’s what he’d always done. It was strange to realize that this time, Peter would have to do the piecing himself, all alone.

“You’ll always have me, Peter,” he murmured, pressing a kiss against the kid’s temple. “As long as I’ve got an ounce of consciousness left in me, I’m gonna be using it to worry about you.”

“This isn’t _fair_.”

For some reason, the comment startled a bitter laugh out of him. What _was_ fair, at sunset? _This_ was life. It was notoriously cruel, notoriously _unfair_. Tony had felt the sting of that fact himself, over and over and over again. But… it was unfair to everyone. Maybe, just maybe, that _did_ make it fair.

And yet he knew that none of those thoughts would be comforts to Peter. Grief could make even the most selfless person selfish. Grief _was_ selfishness, in a surprisingly pure sort of way. It was an internal loss, the wishing that someone could’ve stayed because _you_ missed them. Because _you_ needed them. There was very little thought given to others.

“Everyone dies, Peter,” he whispered, and he hoped it didn’t sound callous. It wasn’t meant to. He’d just… He’d spent so many years coaxing Peter to the edge of truths. The truths of being a superhero, the truths of being an adult, the truths of being a _father_.

After a life of teaching, this was the last thing he had to give: a lesson in grief, in death, in how to love and let go.

He was honored to do it, in a morbid sort of way.

“I know that.” Peter’s voice shook, buckling and trembling. “I just… You’re not supposed to be _everyone_.”

The things that we loved as kids were supposed to stay immortalized in time, Tony supposed. The ever-gold hue of childhood cast places and people into roles of perfection. These were the untouchables. These were the things that _lasted_. He had become one of those relics for Peter, one of the childhood fragments that were supposed to be foundations.

It was hard to exist without things, when you’d spent so long living in their light. How could you know any different? Memories faded so quickly. He wondered how well Peter even remembered a life without him.

He didn’t have an answer to any of Peter’s questions. He didn’t have a balm for the pain. There was nothing he could do to lessen how much this would hurt.

So instead of saying something wise, he just said something true.

“I love you very much. Did you know that?”

Peter let out a wet laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

“Well that’s good, because I do.”

A sniffle. “I love you too, y’know. I wouldn’t be… I wouldn’t be who I am without you.”

He smiled, a beat of genuine happiness in what should’ve been impenetrable misery.

_And that’s what makes every ounce of this grief worth it, _he thought, soul light._ That’s what makes having lived worth it._

Years blurred, generations crawled and walked and ran and laid themselves to rest. Nothing was permanent, no matter how much the human race liked to believe in fairytales of immortality.

Everything would be fine. Tony would bow out, the universe would reach forward and press life into the space he left behind, and everything would be fine.

Everything would be fine.

_Peter_ would be fine.

Tony knew that, because he’d raised him to survive this. He’d poured so much love into Peter’s hands that it ought to last him at least a lifetime or two. And if he ever got close to empty, Tony would just give him more.

He didn’t need to be alive to do that.


End file.
